Conventionally, postal indicia being a monetary value, the quality of their printing on mail items is primordial in order to avoid any fraud or any financial loss for the user in the event of rejection of the franking by the Postal Service.
However, at the present time, there is no systematic monitoring of the quality of print, it being generally checked by the user only after a first rejection by the Postal Service. On the contrary, in certain mailing firms where the franking rates are very high and the rejections likely to cause a considerable financial prejudice, a manual sample check is made by regularly examining franked mail items at the exit of the franking machine.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome the drawbacks resulting from the absence of monitoring or from a simple sample check by hand of the quality of print of postal indicia, by proposing a franking machine allowing an automatic and systematic check of the quality of print of all postal indicia printed. Another purpose of the invention is to allow, at the same time, a control of possible service markings which may be printed on the mail items. Yet another purpose of the invention is to propose a franking device which is simple to use and whose general architecture is not affected to a perceptible degree.